Treated like a suspect

Since America can’t seem to let go of the Trayvon Martin case, let me share an exchange with a reader that involves not the particulars of the Sanford incident, but some of the thoughts it inspired.

A number of people complained when I ran the cartoon above in Sunday’s paper, including a local reader who called it racist. Have you noticed that any acknowledgment of differences between the conditions and experiences of blacks and whites is suddenly being denounced as “racist” by conservatives? Did a memo go out on that? Anyway, here’s what my friend wrote:

“With respect to the cartoon, my kids always remember to floss. Instead, I remind my daughters that, as Buchannan notes below, if a crime is to be committed against them, it’s many times more likely to be perpetrated by black boys than anyone else–whether they chew skittles or not. Isn’t black behavior the basis of much to do about race? Why not raise some questions about this elephant in the room?”

He attached a column by Pat Buchanan detailing high crime and incarceration rates by minorities, which Buchanan has been citing as an excuse for racism since his days in the Nixon White House.

I replied to my friend that I hoped he wasn’t telling his daughters to watch out for black boys, to which he took great offense. He pointed out that Jesse Jackson had said he, too, quickens his pace when he sees black teenagers behind him on the street at night. Jackson said it with regret, as should we all.

Some situations are more dangerous than others, but consider the statistical argument Buchanan and my friend used. Blacks are more likely to commit crimes than whites, so people are right to be afraid whenever they see a black. But if you buy two lottery tickets you are more likely to win than if you buy just one. It does not follow that you should start running up charges on your credit card before the lottery number is drawn – winning the lottery is still highly unlikely. By the same token, the chance that any black male picked at random is a violent criminal is still small, and the chance he’ll attack your daughter is even smaller. Rationally, your fears are not justified by statistics.

Now look at the result of those irrational fears. It may seem only prudent, given the statistics, to follow the black kid around the store or lock your car door when you see a black man on the street. But Barack Obama, Cory Booker – and just about every other black male I’ve discussed it with – has experienced that from the other side, and felt the sting of presumed guilt based on skin color. There are worse outcomes to expressing unjustified suspicion than planting a small grievance in the head of a future president or future New Jersey senator: the same suspicion helped cost Trayvon Martin his life.

Some people would like to deny the reality of those experiences, but what good does that do? I’m not a big fan of “national conversations about race,” but belligerently ignoring America’s historic scar doesn’t seem right either. All parents worry about their kids. Black parents in particular worry about black sons, who can fall victim to a wide range of cultural pathologies, most of which can’t be directly tied to white racism. The jury’s verdict in a particular ambiguous Florida case may be the spark that reignited those concerns, but the issue is bigger than politics, and bigger than the Zimmerman verdict.

Maybe it’s the height of arrogance for white folks like me to comment on the black experience. I am white and a senior–do I qualify as a spokesman, even for whites? Hardly. I suspect most of those who frequently comment here are white as well. Let’s hear from some black folks on the black experience. And let’s listen.

Allow me to plug Baratunde Thurston’s “How to be black’ —I knew him to be pretty funny standup comic and sharply intelligent person so I picked it up expecting to be well entertained. He does more than merely entertain. I highly recommend it.

Perhaps I actually am a broken record. I’ll say it again anway. The Obama-Bernanke Groundhog Day Economic Strategy — “I am pivoting back” — has crushed America’s young generation. It’s made it more difficult to land starting jobs that they qualify for. A large majority start at jobs they’re overqualified for, and many of those are part time. Current estimates — more than four years into the Obama-Bernanke cycle — put the number of “lost hopuseholds” at 5 million, perhaps more. Those are 18-35 year olds who would have had their own place during the Bush-Greenspan era. Marriage rates are down. Fewer young Americans are involved in steady relationships. They can’t afford them.

Incomes aren’t increasing. Except among people over 40. The unemployment gap between older and younger workers is at record levels. The Frank-and-Dodd banking “reform” made it easier for older Americans to refinance mortgages at artifically low rates. It also made it harder for first time buyers to get a mortgage.

The list is endless. The Administration has done nothing to benefit young Americans from an economic standpoint. Somebody will say, no doubt, they get better medical insurance now. As a group, that’s false. And the plan is to trick them to pay abnormally higher rates in the future, so the Government can subsidize the old rich people even more.

Kind of surprisingly, crime committed by young Americans is down by a lot. And it is continuing to fall.

You should be afraid of young Americans, because you’re jerking them around with The Obamanomics. The fact is, though, they’re more civilized than you are.

Don’t despair, Walter. Haven’t you heard that Obama is going on yet another campaign? This one’s about the economy. Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of talking about the economy endlessly, he actually did something about it?

He’s been in office now, about 5 years and instead of fixing it, he’s made it worse. Is it too presumptuous of me to ask, do you suppose it’s deliberate? After all, the smartest man in the world, who was going to heal the planet, MUST have a solution to the economic problem, the unemployment problem, the deficit problem, and numerous other problems that plague his administration, not counting the various scandals that are connected to his administration, like Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the NSA scandal, the Fast and Furious Scandal, and the Associated Press scandal.

So have no worries, Walter, Obama’s hitting the road again. I don’t blame him. If I was as lousy a president as he is, I’d want to get as far away from Washington as I could too, as often as I could. It wouldn’t hurt if I had a few fundraisers along the way, either.

He may not be the smartest man in the world, but he sure is the best con man ever to occupy the Oval Office. The proof is that the ones who voted for him haven’t figured out yet that he IS a con man.

By all means ignore the Republicans in Congress, Jennie, who have been doing everything in their power to stop anything Obama has proposed. The Senate filibusters, and the House votes to repeal the HC law (38 times now, I think). And yet the stock market has soared and the economy has improved in spite of all that.

Pretty quiet on the scandal front, too. I guess Issa is still looking for people who will support his conclusions so they can testify.

Blame Obama if you like, but you know he’s not the only villain here. Tuition was rising and student loan scams proliferating before Obama came along. The trend toward part-time work started before Obama. Companies stopped investing in U.S. production before Obama came along too. You want to blame Obama for income inequality that has been steadily increasing since 1980? Feel free, but drop nearly anyone else into the Oval Office and the kids are going to be just as screwed.

It’s encouraging to hear you say Barack Obama is one of the villains, at least.

One indication the Groundhog Day Strategy will continue is the President’s short list of new Federal Reserve Chairmen — Yellen and Summers. Both are economists, like Bernanke. All three live in a theoretical universe, the ivory tower. The best Chairmen in the past were bankers with hands on experience, like Paul Volker and Willian McChesney Martin.

That’s what America needs on the financial front.

As far as the Executive Branch itself is concerned, Rob is on the mark when he identifies over regulation, over spending, and counter productive health care rules as key obstacles.

The Administration says it plans to just keep running the same old plays — dividing the economic pie more “equitably” instead of expanding it. That’s a sure fire recipe that America’s young generations will continue to get short changed.

And its hard for anyone to blame the War on Drugs, because a black president is now overseeing the criminalization of an entire black generation. Obama has the ability to end it with executive orders, and he won’t. Don”t blame whitey for this–barry owns it.

Stipulated. Obama didn’t start the war on drugs, but he hasn’t ended it either. He didn’t adopt an anti-crime strategy based on mass incarceration, 50 states and the U.S. Congress did.

But back to the thesis: Are you going to blame Obama because generations of adults (of all races) treat young black men as suspects first, people second? Or are you just going to blame him for mentioning it last week?

Rick, one of the points of Warrior Cops is that Obama may not have started the war on drugs, but he redirected it to black males for political advantage. his calculation was that blacks would vote for him no matter what, and he needed the public sector unions and their members, so he shifted the war from killing the browns to killing the blacks, gets the union support, and then wrings his hands because black men feel persecuted. if they are persecuted, its being they are being persecuted by Obama. He has the power to stop it. He would have the support of the minority communities, a huge percentage of the white liberal left, a big chunk of the libertarian right, and the good will of humanity, but he won’t do it because he needs the political support of unions and he can get it while talking out of both sides of his mouth. Look at the wacky debate going on in Congress over privacy–the Tea Party joining hands with the loony left to sing kumbaya. The coalition is there, obama isn’t running for re election, so its time to do the right thing. I am so sick of this war on drug. I’ve been bitching about it since 1983, and the corrosive effect on our society has never been more obvious, or more blatant, or more racist, or more hypocritical. As Billy Joel said, just because you didn’t light the fire doesn’t mean that you don’t have to fight it.

Obama unilaterally stopping the war on drugs, the war that no elected official dares to question and will defend to death or election loss so s/he’ll (they’ll) get cop and conservative support. Hahahahahahaha

Lee, Obama’s not running again. If he wants a real legacy, he has the power to make a difference. Maybe someone can get the actual number, but by one point last year he had issued something like 2400 executive orders. this country is already being run by executive fiat. if he really thinks that the government is at war with black men, he has the power to stop it. I guaranty that Jesse jackson would. Which raises an interesting point that Mark mentioned to me last year. Jesse Jackson is an African American. Obama is black. There is a huge difference in identification.

“Maybe someone can get the actual number, but by one point last year he had issued something like 2400 executive orders.”

According to the Federal Register, the actual number is quite a bit lower than 2400 – it’s actually 159. That’s 159 over the 4.5 years of his presidency.

Obama’s “run rate” of executive orders comes out to 35.3 per year, which isn’t all that much different than his predecessor’s rate of 35.875 per year, and less than the earlier 2-termer who had a run rate of 38.5 per year. Those are straight averages, btw.

No president can or will stop the war on drugs, ever, it’s too lucrative. There’s billions of dollars to be made in the drug testing industry which began in 1971 testing the kids coming home from Vietnam. Not to mention the billions being made in the prison industry.

Outsourcing prisons has a lot to do with the “war on drugs”, but why complain about that? Thinking Obama can stop it ignores the root causes of the drug testing and prison industries, in my opinion.

The black thing, that’s your profile. In Arizona blacks are regular Americans. Nobody is afraid of them. Nobody gives them a second thought. Just another guy. In Arizona you’re on the lookout for Mexican gangsters. It’s not racism. It’s statistics.

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